Captured
by totalfreedom
Summary: Emily had thought she'd found the one in Naomi Campbell, but when she discovered Naomi's paintings, things took a terrifying turn.
1. Chapter 1

The silence, made of nothing but stone, temporarily fell away when the soft cloth slipped from around my eyes and landed at the base of my neck. I blinked in the alien surroundings profusely, curtains shunning all daylight, stained plates and cups loitering around the thin carpet as though they were disgruntled colleagues in a disorderly conference, frays in the cushions of the brown, broken-down, couch. The piece of furniture looked almost as depressed to be here as I felt, and I could've sworn it'd shrugged hopelessly at me and sighed. But I couldn't've been sure. I wasn't sure of anything anymore. I didn't know where I was, I didn't know what this was, and I didn't know who the even-paced breathing behind me belonged to, didn't know who'd just loosened the knot in the cloth around my head and granted me sight again.

"Who's there?"

My question, riddled weak with the looming tears collecting in my esophagus, prompted this ominous presence out of the shadows, dirty, faded converses shuffling out across the carpet to the couch, a tired wooly jumper, which looked like it would fall apart with its next wash – not that it looked like it ever got to take a ride around the washing machine – and blonde hair so addled with grease that you could ring it out and fry an egg with its secretions.

I gasped in realization and near choked, my throat not equipped to house thundering hearts, tears, and gasps all at once.

It was her.

The couch sank under her weight as she almost too cautiously took a seat on it, blue eyes colder than the inside of a freezer as they took on that of my quivering chestnut's.

"If you scream, Emily, you'll be giving me no other choice but to use the chloroform again." She spoke, very calm, very calculated.

Well I was glad that someone was calm, because I was freaking out outwardly and inwardly, moisture leaking from more holes in my skin than I could place a bucket under, heart wild and untamed in my chest, cheeks tickled with salty pear-shaped capsules, the flesh of my wrists thin and raw under the restriction of the rope cuffing them together, as I wriggled them with unhealthy aggression. With futile aggression.

Aggression.

The aggression with which she'd marked her canvases those dark reds and brooding purples hadn't been futile in the least. It'd been purposeful, violent, so heavy I'd near felt the wounds and abrasions depicted in each painting physically, and with this memory, I became hysterical, sniveling and hiccupping out. "Am," Another snivel, "Am I going to die?"

"I know your frightened," She paused, steely blue's stilling on me, "Don't be."

She reached for the packet of smokes sitting next to her on the couch, shortly after disappearing behind a gang of smoke clouds.

I hung my head low then, kinked strands of scarlet hair falling around my face with gravity's tug.

I hadn't seen this coming, not at all. It'd just been a normal day like any other, and if someone had informed me that I'd be in the predicament that I was in now: bound to a wooden chair in an unknown location, at the hands of a psychopath, I would've said, '_Not in this movie, mate_.'

But this wasn't a movie. _This_ was real, and sat across this pokey little room from me was indeed a psychopath.


	2. Chapter 2

Treetop Gardens. Anyone stupid enough to let themselves be swindled into thinking that this was a neighborhood you wanted to raise kids or settle in, based purely off of the name, was destined to experience more than a few unfortunate events. Filled with poky post-war terraces, once white, now yellow and peeling, cars cluttering the curbs, music bounding out from many an open door, and untidy teenage boys littering the alleyways, Treetop Gardens was hardly the safest place to live.

Mom, dad, and Katie were always drumming it into me that I should stop walking the fifteen minutes home from work alone, especially in those colder months, when the sun is on shorter shifts. Coming back from work was really the only time I walked home alone though, the small shops and taxi bases I always passed experiencing a much louder Emily when I'd stumble the streets back home, swaying and giggling with some girl after a good night out, the rest of the time. Besides, I was Emily Fitch, fiery little redhead, an arm animated with tattoos, and a right hook worthy of Ali.

Treetop Gardens may not have been the safest place to live, but it'd suited me fine…well, up until the night I'd been walking home from a late shift, the four teenage boys who always seemed to be sitting on the wall a few away from mine in their usual spot. Never had I paid them enough attention to give an accurate description, but I knew them as a collective by the loose denims that hung from their scrawny adolescent hips and their designer shirts, which'd seemed out of place in the harsh orange of the streetlamp. I'd clutched my bag just that little bit closer to my body walking past them, feeling the need to acknowledge their slightly intimidating leers with a small and, what I'd hoped was, a placating smile. It didn't work though, just compelled them to speak at me in a tongue completely alien to my ears.

"I heard you're on this lesbian thing?" One harsh Jamaican-soaked voice reached.

"What you saying, you fit piece of gash? Don't tell me you're on girls."

"Wanna suck my dick?" A third had called, the scrape of trainers against pavement ringing out as he jumped down from his perch on the wall.

Now _that_ I'd understood, and I'd turned to them seeing his shadow grow on mine. His cheeks had been a little rosy, his lips pulled across teeth much too large for his mouth.

"Come any closer, and I'll bite your fucking dick off!" I'd growled.

He then stopped dead on his jaunt over to me, and I hadn't moved at all except to angle my head towards him, my eyes documenting every feature of his face; his _Ecko_ cap hid the beginnings of a blonde fringe, as he'd stood staring at me as if considering something.

"Well, just give me your bag then." He'd suddenly come out with, casual as the piece of silver hanging from his wrist.

I almost scoffed at the haphazardness of it all at the time, but I didn't, instead sending, "Fuck off!" out into the silent street, listening to it double and then triple into itself in an echo.

That's when the one I'd noted for having the strong Caribbean accent hopped off of the wall too, shoulders square and coarse, fingers balled to weapons.

"I don't like feisty little English girls, you know?" He'd said, quickly passing his friend on his way over to me and one-hand shoving me with such the venom of a cobra, later crouching to collect the bag that'd spilled from my grip and slid out across the concrete.

Shaken, I'd just leaned up on my elbows from the gritty grey like a fucking coward, watching the four boy's backs as they walked off sniggering and tossing my bag amongst them.

So, a few months later, when I saw a woman sat on the curb out in front of my house, through a falter in my front room's curtains, I shrugged on a cardigan and headed out to her. Since the incident with the four lads, it'd been something I did regularly; gotten up off of my sofa in the middle of _Eastenders_ or _Chinese food in minutes_ just to peak a quick gander out the front window to make sure nothing suspect was going on. Secretly wishing I'd see those four boys again, so that I could take retribution – even if that retribution came in the form of violence.

I would be ready for them.

The girl didn't once glance up out of her gaze with the sky's shimmering ball of cheese when I slinked across the concrete of the dead road in my noisy slippers, and took up the free spot of curb next to her.

We sat there, the two of us, for what felt like forever, lifeless street loud around us, mom's voice reverberating in my mind: '_Emily, you musn't talk to strangers. They could do all kinds of ungodly things to you_.'

_Well I'm twenty-four now_, I'd inwardly concluded, _and I don't want what those four cunts did to me to happen to anyone else_.

I stared at this girl unabashedly, wanting the discomfort that I knew I'd shrink under, should some total stranger pull up seat next to me and just begin gawping, to call her out of her head. But it didn't. She just remained there, sight focused up at the night in some sort of morose daze.

In the end It took me dropping, "You know, this isn't the safest place to just be curb-surfing at a half-hour past midnight," to get her to look at me, and when she showed me her face it was all I could do to conceal my desire to shed all clothes and fire my bra, panties, and lastly: myself, at her. Her shoulder-length blonde hair may've looked like flies would've gotten stuck in it, the skin beneath her bloodshot, red-rimmed, steel blue eyes made up of bags larger than the free ones you get at Morrisons, but the girl was absolutely exquisite to look at. A pleasure on the eyes.

A beautiful, fragile, rare, teal topaz jewel.

"I can handle myself, believe me." She had surprised me with that, and then gone straight back to gazing into the nothingness…

"We can all handle ourselves, until we're outnumbered by four hostile teenage boys."

I got nothing for that, so I went with something else. "Seem a little upset sweetheart. Are you ok?"

She sighed a long drawn out sigh at that, making me feel like I was pestering her, and I instantly understood.

I was one of those people who couldn't stand being around others when I was upset. I was liable to snap any arm reaching out to comfort me, liable to snap at anyone asking whether I was ok or not. I'd never seen myself as pitiful, or in need of support. Just wasn't me, and anyone threatening that self-concept, whether it was out of the goodness of their heart's or not, was going to feel it. I guessed that maybe this girl was the same.

"Well," I began, pushing myself up to my feet. "Make sure you get home safely. I'm going to head in."

And I did just that, not knowing what i'd just let myself in for.


	3. Chapter 3

**Thank you guys for all of the story alerts and thanks to those who have commented. : ) Chapter 3**

"It's Emily isn't it?"

The key, already halfway in the lock, had no chance when my hand startled – a bundle of silver crashing to the stone step of my house – at the sudden voice, and I steadied myself on my front door, snapping my head around to see if I could assign a body to the, pesky, disembodied words.

"Oh." I muttered once I'd located the long stature of the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, jewel from a few nights ago.

The, gorgeous, curb-surfing blonde.

Of course, gorgeous was the last thing she'd been in that moment, since she'd near frightened my skeletal structure out of its skin with her sudden emergence out of nowhere, and it'd painted her as slightly irritating. "Fucking hell, are you trying to give me a heart attack? Jesus!"

"I came to say sorry for being so curt the other night. You were just being the concerned citizen, and I spurned you, so…sorry."

I forced my heart out of my throat and back down into my chest, feeling a forever growing frown elongating in my forehead. "Wait, how do you know my name?"

"How do I know your name?" She repeated and I watched her brows take flight, before she hastily landed them and dressed her expression in a less than genuine smile, "Oh, I've erm, just; I've seen you up that club – _ReVulva_. I've heard of you too. It's a small scene.. You're on the lips of many women."

I'd smirked inwardly, _more than you know blondie_.

The thought of all the women I'd slept with throwing meetings to discuss my juggling of them had made me cringe, because then they'd have to change the name of that movie from _John Tucker Must Die_ to Emily Fitch must die. Nevertheless, despite this woman's explanation for knowing who I was being perfectly plausible, something about her changed, seemed to become unsure when she'd answered me.

The keys spilled at my feet sparkled at me in the sunlight, the biggest key of the bundle leant to the side as if perplexed...

I'd never seen her at _ReVulva_.

Not once.

_I would have remembered_, my inner monologue had piped up, before I eventually shrugged to myself. "What's your name?" I half-squinted at her, unable to deny that my interest had been piqued.

"Doesn't matter."She smiled and shrugged. "I've given my apology, and now I'll be off."

She'd made to walk off, long slender fingers fumbling with the zipper of her leather jacket, the abstract print on her white t-shirt disappearing with every inch the zip travelled north, finishing off at the base of her neck, and I saw hickeys which weren't yet there on the soft skin of what would've been her Adam's apple had she been a man. But she wasn't a man.

_Far the fuck from man_, I'd thought, taking note of the black denim riding taught over the curve of her thigh.

"Wait, so if you've seen me up _ReVulva_, does that mean…you're gay?" The hope in my tone, which could've been found in embarrassing quantities, had stopped her steady strut, but I didn't care if I came across overly eager. The girl was drop-dead, and whether she was into girls or not, I'd told myself that she was going to be into me by the time I'd done with her.

A small smirk sat in the corner of her mouth at that, at my hope, and her head canted slightly on its side, before she finally put me out of my misery. "A little."

"A little? How can you be a little bit gay? You either like tits and fanny, or you don't."

"I like _my_ tits and fanny." She'd retorted.

In sharp contrast to the toxic waves of misery that'd wafted off of her during our initial meeting, in contrast to the slumped shoulders she'd worn when we'd met, they had bounced when she'd chuckled moments later, and I soon joined her in the mirth, my doorstep a church of intense giggles, because I was convinced that I'd like her tits and fanny too.

"Does that count?" She continued, crossing her arms over her chest and adopting a stance designed for pondering, so that her leather jacket rose a little, taking the t-shirt underneath with it to reveal her immaculate midriff, "Because It –"

And with the sight of the bellybutton I wished to sip champagne from, I became helplessly direct. "Ok, so here's the deal," I cut her short, "I happen to think you're _ridiculously_ beautiful, so how about we put your small portion of homosexuality to use and maybe we can do something together sometime? Least you can do since you were _soo_ curt the other night." I reminded her, half-joking.

"Do something like what?" She came back faster than I could've ever anticipated, playfully scoffing through an impish grin. "You want to take me curb-surfing don't you?"

"Beautiful _and_ witty." I'd said with a grin, looking directly into her eyes for a few beats, and then breaking them with the question: "What's your name?"

I watched the serene blue of her orbs form white when she rolled them, later slotting back blue, and she took her hand through her hair, which'd clearly been treated to some water since the last time we'd encountered. "I might as well just get this over and done with hadn't I? Name's Naomi Campbell."

She then took to hoovering her bottom lip between her teeth and narrowing her sight on me, as if waiting for me to split a side laughing. So her mother, or it could've been her father, had been a bit of a clown, the subject of the joke having been their daughter, but I hadn't given two fucks. Seriously, Naomi could've been called condom-sock Weasly for all I was bothered; I still would have wanted to've gotten jelly-legged off of champagne which I'd slurped from her bellybutton.

"Well, Naomi Campbell, if you're not busy, you should be here for eight-thirty Thursday evening. You're gonna end up, splat, all over the walls of my lounge when I get done feeding you, and _then_, we're going to play _Singstar_ on my new Ps3."

"_Singstar_?"

"_Singstar_." I'd winked, yielding at the knees to scoop up my fallen keys, and opening my front door.

"I don't erm, I don't sing." She said, the thought of it clearly setting her on edge.

Now stood in my porch, I gently let the nose of my shoe go at the door, smiling to myself when it shut the gorgeous bemused-looking Naomi out, and I quickly dropped to my knees to finalize. "_Singstar_," through the letterbox.

I couldn't believe my luck.


	4. Chapter 4

**Another chapter. Thanks for reading.**

The smoke had diminished from clouds to mere wisps, revealing her face to me again, revealing the brown couch to me again, like a magician's puff-of-smoke trick, and it wasn't long until she rose from her spot and I briefly experienced her lips on my temple. They were soft, unlike the robotic look in her eye when she drew back to just stare at me.

"I've missed you Em." She stated, reaching a few cigarette-scented fingers out to take through my hair as though mesmerized and fascinated by me.

"_Please_ Naomi, why are you doing this?" I begged, hoping to appeal to the side of her which was responsible for the loss of ice to her tone as she'd spoken my nickname just now. "Please! Just let me go and I promise, I won't breathe a word to anyone about this."

A sigh trudged from her shoulders to the soles of her feet before she downcast her eyelids and slowly shook her head. "I can't do that." …Her somber blue's flickered up a second later. "Time for dinner now. Bath'll be later."

With that she stepped past me, and I went back to hanging my head, watching my tears hit the carpet, the beginnings of a jarring headache increasing deep within my skull. What was I doing here? I looked around the room with eyes which felt like there were grains of sand in them, and wondered if this dirty little room was going to be the last four walls I ever saw. I didn't fucking get it though! What was the point in feeding me and…bathing me? My mind seemed to answer me visually then, images from a program I'd seen a few years ago, on channel five, called '_Real Dolls_,' about sad lonely men spending close to two-grand on life-size, life-like, female dolls; having sex with them, talking to them, combing their hair in the mornings. At the time, I'd concluded that these men were just insecure perverts with self-esteem so low that they didn't feel they could approach a living breathing woman with the ability to talk back…or reject them. I couldn't help think that I was now Naomi's Real Doll. She couldn't have the real thing, so she was forcing me, forcing an environment where I was dependent on her to feed me, clothe me and wash me?

I shuddered at the thought, my feelings on the matter becoming more and more refracted the deeper I delved into the depravity of the possibility, and that's when the contents of my stomach tore apart my lips to spill out in a puddle of half-digested macaroni and cheese. It smelt just like it sounded: rancid, but I wasn't concerned with that. The acid searing the insides of my throat was far more of a bother, aggravated by my profuse coughing and spluttering.

"Emily?" I suddenly heard, and through a few moments of tamer heaving, I perceived the loudening of shoes thudding across the carpet. "Emily!" Naomi sounded panicked, that air of roboticism no longer following her around. Just panic. Panic and concern as she fled off behind me and returned with whatever she was mopping the vomit from my chin with. "Fuck!" She whispered, when another wave of half-digested food bubbled up in my mouth and oozed out all over her fingers. "Emily." She whispered, so tenderly that I almost went cross-eyed with confusion.

An hour had probably trotted by since I'd heaved up my entire organ system, and it had trotted by so slowly that a snail had waved as it'd passed it. Mouth numb with awful tastes, body starved for energy, skin of my cheeks scabbed over with dry tears; I felt an absolute wreck. The surroundings weren't helping either; a rat would've run from this place, and as long as Naomi had spent on her hands and knees, spraying something chemical at the vomit spot and scrubbing, fumes of it were still wafting up and sending me dizzy every now and then.

I couldn't stand this. The not knowing, the fear, the confusion, these disgusting surroundings, and suddenly I began to feel the birthing of an anger too intense for my little frame to house. It's like a full tube of toothpaste; all it takes is a small squeeze and the paste shoots out everywhere. Well watching Naomi mush and chop at the spaghetti Bolognese from the small bowl in her hand, and coiling the long laces of spaghetti and mince around the fork to hold it out towards my mouth, was enough of a squeeze for, "Fuck you!" to come barreling out of my lips. "When I get out of here, I'm going to have you sectioned Naomi."

I watched her eyes grow through my own glare, the fork jumping thanks to the unsteady hand holding it. "Come on Em." She pushed on, bringing the food-clad fork to knock at my lips again, seemingly over my outburst.

This time I let my bottom lip hang ajar, accepting the deliverance of food. Naomi withdrew the fork with a small smile, satisfied – or relieved, I'm not quite sure – that I was done being difficult, and quickly brought another helping of food to my lips.

I was still chewing the last lot, only stopping to shower her with it. Chunks of chewed mince and spaghetti laces, gnawed to half their original size, slid down her face like rain down a window. She blinked deliberately, attempting to digest what I'd just done I think. Through the lens of my anger I allowed myself a spiteful chuckle at the repeated buckets of water that Naomi seemed to be throwing over the multiplying lava within, her fingers balling and uncoiling again.

Good, now she understood just a small portion of what I was feeling.

"Fuck sake." She finally settled on, spitting it out into the wooly jumper which was now serving to wipe the bits of mush sliding down her face.

"Fuck you!" I told her again, missing the previously brewing storm behind the blue of her eyes.

It never returned though, the storm. Instead she just sighed and stood up, disappearing off to wherever it was that she went when she took off behind me.

"Fuck you!" I screamed this time, taking into account everything she'd done to me.

"Emily, I've already told you; if you scream I'm going to have to use the chloroform" Naomi said, over the clattering of what sounded like dishes being washed. "I don't want to have to get it out so, _please_, just keep it down. Yeah?" She called again.

"Go on then!" I yelled even louder, echoes reverberating throughout the small room. "Being unconscious has got to be better than sitting in this hard fucking chair, staring at your psychotic face all day!"

I wasn't her little _Em_ anymore, the one who'd always bend to accommodate to whatever it was that _she_ wanted. Wide-eyed, eager-to-please, loved-up-to-the-eyeballs Emily was gone, and _she_ was the one responsible for that. Naomi had broken my fucking heart, and not just in the traditional sense. This girl had masqueraded as a normal, sane, woman, capable of loving me, capable of making me fall in love with her. And I _had_ loved her. It was the reason I hadn't gone to the police after I saw those paintings. But right now, I wanted nothing more than to displease, and if having her knock me unconscious against her desires was what it was going to take, then so be it.

She was in front of me again within seconds, looking at me with the same slightly panicked stare that a teacher would regard a child for which they had no means of making behave. "Em, please." She requested, her eyes falling closed as she spoke, her voice breaking.

I hated that her discomfort could still punch through my chest and squeeze at my heart, but I lowered my voice anyway, recognizing that there was something more important transpiring here. "Why are you so reluctant to knock me out?"

Naomi's eyes sprung ajar, shimmering a new gloss, as she threw her hands up in the air dramatically. "Because it's normal to actually _want_ to hold a chloroform-soaked cloth over the face of the one person who means absolutely everything to you and render them unconscious isn't it?" Her sarcasm, though it'd wielded less bite thanks to the tears in her throat, bit at my ears.

So I bit back, furious at the conspicuousness of the lie she'd just told, "Well you seem to've had no problem doing it to get me here!" I near collapsed my voice box, the legs of my chair jittering across the carpet in reaction to my rage-filled bellowing. "Because _clearly_, kidnapping the _one person who means absolutely everything to you_ is normal! I mean nothing to you! You were planning to stab me. You killed all of those people!"

"No!" She joined me in the same screaming she'd forbade I indulge in before calming herself. "I'm not the monster you think I am. You didn't give me chance to explain what you saw, not that you'd believe a psychopath like me anyway Emily. Not that you'd actually believe my reasons for why you're here now –"

"Then tell me. Why are you doing this?"

I wanted to hear this.

Naomi bowed her head, a small, "No," sounding low. She looked up at me shortly after and used the cuffs of her disgusting wooly jumper to wipe at the ocean leaking from her blue's, sighing full-cheeked. "It's all I have left…and if, if you don't believe it then I'm going to have to finally let go of any hope that you will ever have any feelings for me again."

I followed her previous action and bowed my head, just unable to look at her. Unable to look at the pain webbing lines in her forehead.

The sick truth was that I'd always have feelings for her, no matter what.


	5. Chapter 5

**Here's chapter 5. Big thanks to everyone for giving this a chance. it's not your mainstream Naomily fic lol. Never could do anything mainstream, me haha, so i was happy to learn that you guys are intrigued by this, if not a little confused by the mystery of it all. Erm, to those of you who have said that the quality of my writing is brillinat...*hugs* :) Thank you for favoriting and for the alerts also guys. The following chapters are going to be the events leading up to the culmination of 'the kidnapping' haha, so i hope you enjoy.**

**btw, anon, your english is fine!**

'Date' Thursday, as my mind's secretary has taken to labeling it, was so vibrant in my memory that whenever I allowed it some playback I always felt as though the evening was happening all over again; everything was still there, right down to the way that the sweet aroma, emanating from the pots burning over the rings of the cooker, followed me to the front door when I'd opened it to see Katie stood on my doorstep, to the almost intruding scent of next door's barbeque, which'd pretty much muddied the air of the entire street…

"Eff said my presence was necessary." Katie explained from my doorstep, shaking three large bananas at me, and my entire face came alive with a smile at the thought of my sister dropping everything to come and help me out.

The way that the two of them flounced around each other in my kitchen that day, Effy subtly brushing Katie's hips with her hands on her way over to the fridge to get more butter, Katie dipping her finger in the flour and flicking it in Effy's hair; none of it made sense to me whilst I'd leant against the kitchen counter and observed the rolling of pastry and the simmering of pasta. I was much too involved in my own head, much too involved in all affairs concerning the girl with the supermodel name to've caught onto what was bubbling beneath the surface even back then.

I'd just seen it as slacking when Effy held her hand out towards my twin and sighed a sigh designed to make the situation appear more dramatic than it was, her voice the embodiment of boredom. "Give me the mango sauce Katie."

I rolled my eyes, "Katie, give the girl the sauce would you? We don't have long until she gets here, and I don't want her to know that I can't cook worth shit. I promised her I'd feed her until she went splat all over my walls."

At my request their little game dissolved and Katie passed the little glass bottle to Effy, spinning to consider me with an expression of interest, "We're not talking about the girl who followed you around the cash and carry, offering to buy your groceries if you'd sleep with her, are we? Fuck, Em, I can't keep up. So, all of this," She thrashed a hand in the direction of the oven, "Is for the girl you met on the curb just outside right?"

I nodded, reminded of how broken Naomi had looked the first time I'd met her, and I baffled with how that initial image of her failed to hold with the playful creature I'd verbally romped with and asked out on my doorstep a couple of days later.

"The girl our Emily's gone soft for." Effy corrected, chuckling to herself.

There was nothing appropriate laying about the worktop that I could throw at the chuckling brunette, and I looked believe me, so I settled on, "Fuck off."

Effy stopped drip-dropping the mango sauce onto the seasoned chicken and looked at me. "Deny it." She'd dared, smirking, and I suddenly felt myself sticking to the floor and worktop under her knowing blue eyes.

"I've only met her twice." I replied with a gulp, too aware of the four eyes training relentlessly into me.

"Yet you rang me at ridiculous o clock this morning, and begged me to come round and cook the best dish I knew for your date with her this evening." Effy added with a side-smile, and satisfied with the job she'd done on silencing me she gently nudged Katie, "Get those banana muffins cracking Kay; what do you think I called you round here for, my health? I see enough of you at home."

"Charming." Despite Katie's retort she alerted instantly and began moving around my box of a kitchen almost on auto-pilot. I remember thinking that Effy would've made a good head chef, and I wondered if Katie running around on Effy's say so was how things operated back at their place. They'd gotten a flat together after college, after Freddie's accident, after Katie had gotten Effy through the worst of her breakdown. For a while Katie was the only person Eff would speak to, and I suppose it made sense since they'd both known Freddie like…_that_, but I was always a little bit jealous of how close they became – even fell out with Eff once because of it.

I gave it a few minutes before I called any attention to myself again, hoping that the subject of me having gone soft would have died out in Effy and Katie's minds by then.

"You know, Em, they say that a relationship which begins with lies always ends badly. I, like, read it in Destiny magazine, and they're always on point." Katie broke the comfortable silence that'd fallen snug between all three of us; bowl tucked under one arm, body trembling slightly as she whisked its contents.

Of course I scoffed the biggest scoff in history. "Says the girl who's told almost all of her boyfriends that the boobs they're so fond of are real."

"Harsh." Effy commented, turning one of the dials on the oven.

"She's probably not gonna care that I was lenient with the truth about who cooked the food when I'm giving her the best orgasm of her life – by the way, have either of you ever heard of her or seen her at _ReVulva_? Tall, maybe five seven, wavy blonde hair, gorgeous blue eyes. Name's Naomi Campbell. She's absolutely stunning."

Katie ignored me, still reeling from the sting of my cat claws, and Effy raised a brow and asked. "Naomi Campbell? Bet she used to get the shit ripped out of her in school."

"Emsy shum." I said when I glanced at my twin and saw that the light which she'd walk in with was dim.

She was sensitive about her boobs, as silly as that sounds – sensitive about her whole appearance to be honest. I was always telling her not to worry; that she had nothing to worry about because she looked like me, and then the inevitable tandem of laughter would always fall between us, but it never really stuck for long. Back in college she'd already been an appearance-oriented person – that's putting it tamely actually – but after finding out that she couldn't have kids, appearance kind of became all she had left.

I hadn't meant to snap. It just…happened.

"Emsy shum, Katie." I apologized again.

"Yeah," Effy rested a hand to Katie's lower back, "She's just touchy when it comes to curb girl, because she might actually care about this one. Isn't that right Em?"

Done with Effy's digs and done with being the bad guy in the room, I escaped to the living room to set up the Ps3.

It was lonely sat in my lounge an hour and a half later, TV's volume close to mute, Effy's comments poking me and then running off, only to repeat the childish action again. The ps3 was stood tall and every time I glanced at it, it seemed to ask me whether I was _ever_ going to use it, and I started to wonder the same thing myself. Food was all prepped and ready to be devoured in the kitchen, I was dressed to the nines. The only thing missing was…well, Naomi. I kept looking to the clock, every minute past eight-thirty acting as another brick added to the castle of discouragement I was feeling, and it dawned on me that the two of us hadn't exchanged numbers, so if she couldn't make it or if something had come up last minute, she wouldn't have been able to contact me.

"Well Fitch, first date you've ever attempted in your twenty-four years and it's a total flop! Well done." I told myself so harshly that I was actually shocked to find no bruises when I gazed my reflection in my porch mirror. "Stick to what you're good at," I continued, watching my pale naked shoulder rise and fall in a shrug, "Fucking girls senseless and then onto the next. This dating bollox isn't for you."

I was just about to finger Cook's number into the phone to ask him whether he fancied joining me out on the lash for the night, get absolutely slaughtered, pull a few fit girls – or lads if you were the manwhore that Cook was – the lot, when: "I'm sorry I'm late," filtered quietly into the house through the open letterbox.

All awareness of the phone died then, and I'd had the door open within seconds.

Relief was apparently all the rage that summer because Naomi was wearing nothing else in her expression. "I thought you were gonna leave me out here; I've rang the bell probably eleven times. Sorry I'm so late, I –"

"Bell doesn't work." I interjected coldly, secretly taking great delight in the pleasure of seeing her hair bone-straight. The pleasure of seeing Naomi in skinny's, converses and a fabulous off-the-shoulder top which stressed the arcs of her chest.

"Right," she shifted uncomfortably, "Well as I was saying, the reason I'm late is –"

"It doesn't matter." I said, finally easing my face into a smile, "You don't have to explain yourself to me. You're here now and that's the point."

Naomi showed me her smile then, full and beautiful it was, and I stepped to the side to accommodate her entry.

"When you told me you were going to feed me until I exploded, you were not joking were you?" Naomi said, eyes following the two banana muffins that I'd just sat on our respective plates. She looked intimidated almost and I couldn't help the ridiculous schoolgirl giggle that came out of me. "How are you able to eat all of that," She gestured a couple of her flawless fingers towards our finished with dishes but kept her sight on the muffin in front of her, as if it were going to harm her if she didn't keep an eye on its every move, "And _still_ have room for this muffin?"

I guess she was full.

"When you grow up with a mother as insistent as mine, you learn trust me. '_Come on Emsy, you don't want mommy to think that her cooking is horrible do you? So eat the two peas left on your plate please_.' I figured that if she was crazy enough to refer to herself in third person _and_ emotionally blackmail her own children, then I should just _do_ what she said."

I got worried and thought I'd said something out-of-road when Naomi brought her palms to her face, but as they fell back to resting on top of the table, and I was able to see that her eyes were fastened tight at the corners, her shoulders softly jerking, I realized that she had the cutest laugh of anyone I'd ever seen. "Two peas." She finally managed to get out once the laughter fizzled out a bit. "That's hilarious. Surely she could've let you off."

I snapped from the grip of the warm and fuzzy entity which was her laughter, and replied. "Yeah well living in the Fitch household, nothing went to waste if my mother could help it."

The mirth seemed to leave us shortly after, pulling the covers over itself to catch twenty winks, and Naomi's smile grew to a serious one.

"Thank you for the delicious food Emily."

"No probs." I said, inwardly applauding Effy and Katie's seamless dance around my kitchen hours previous.

"Best meal I've had in too long. I've been living on microwaved food and frozen oven dinners for the past how many years, because the cooking gene eluded me."

"You don't have to eat the muffin if you're full. You can just sit and watch me eat both yours and mine whilst you tell me about the kinds of things that you do for fun." I grinned.

"They'll be rolling you down a hill soon." She teased, one of her hands patting and circling her stomach.

"Things you do for fun!" I demanded playfully, chuckles of my own joining hers as I scooped her muffin from her plate and had it rub shoulders with that of mine.

"Ok, fun!" Naomi sat up straight, later grimacing at how full she was and I smiled to myself. She wasn't able to say that I was one of those people who never kept good on their promises. "So I like to draw, paint. I work in a café, so when it's quiet I'll sometimes draw the customers sat at their tables. Is that slightly creepy?" She came out of her concentration to ask me this rhetorically, brief laughter spilling from those supple-looking lips, "Erm, I also…"

To this day, only God knows what else she must've said. I didn't hear a word of it. My inner monologue was louder, constantly squeeing at how easy things were with her. Conversations, comfortableness, laughter…lust. The girl was fucking stunning _and_ she had a brain in her head, which was way more than could've been said for some of the nitwits I'd brought back in the past. There and then, I decided that maybe dating wasn't as bad of an idea as I thought it would be.

"What about you Emily? What kinds of things do you do in your leisure – besides a lot of women?"

I raised my eyebrow at her. "Look I don't know who your source is, but you need to fire 'em. I'll have you know that I spend all day cooped up in the lounge playing _Singstar_, which reminds me. Up, we're having a sing-off."

Before or since, I don't think my living room has ever heard me laugh more than I did in the moment I glimpsed the look on Naomi's face as I selected one of _Mariah Carrey's_ ballads for _Singstar_, and took her hand to place the microphone in it.

"It's not funny. I don't sing; I told you." She'd protested, attempting to hand me back the microphone, "Especially Mariah Carrey. Are you trying to have me lose my voice?"

I remember smirking and thinking that the only time it would be alright for Naomi to loose her voice would be if she'd worn it hoarse calling out my name between the sheets, but of course I didn't articulate this at the time, instead choosing, "You were late here Naomi. Least you could do is sing with me." I chuckled at my playful tactic of guilt-tripping and tried put on my best puppy-dog-eyed look at the same time, which must've looked strange to Naomi's eyes.

"I can't" She said, shaking her head and holding her hands up as though there was nothing more she could do.

"You won't"

"Ok, I won't."

We held eyes then, slow smirks calving out in the corners of both our mouths. "Ok then. You can just whistle into the microphone instead."

Naomi accepted her microphone back then, puckering and relaxing her perfect lips in warm-up, whilst I'd silently vowed to someday get her to sing in my presence.

**Tell me what you think.**


	6. Chapter 6

**You guys are probably bored of me saying thanks, but it's gotta be said. I'm very appreciative of the feedback you guys have given : ) It's a massive compliment to know that this is different from most ofther fics. It's always good to know that you're pushing the boundries. To those of you who've said that this is confusing, hopefully it's not confusing in a way that ruins the flow of the story for you, and it's confusing in a 'why the fuck is this happening? I have to find out what happens.' kind of way lol. Erm, I'm actually not 100% about this chapter, so if i come up with something better, i may just withdraw this and post the reworked version.**

"So how was the blondie then? I heard you got Eff's to cook a meal for this girl and everything. Did you help her to _work_ it off for desert?"

When that sentence had came from Cook's lips, one of his eyebrows wiggling suggestively through the grimace caused by the strain of him lifting his dumbbells, I smiled. I smiled because the first date I'd ever allowed myself had been dreamy, and Cook bringing it up was a nice reminder of what fun I'd had.

Naomi. She'd left my house that Thursday night after slipping her phone number into the cleavage of my dress and pecking me small on the lips. I'd tried to deepen it of course, taking both my hands to the sides of her soft neck when I had sensed her leaning in, but she was quick to lean out and wink me the sexiest wink of anybody I've ever seen, before hopping into her car and zooming off.

We'd been texting ever since.

Texts about silly stuff which would've been insignificant to anybody else, but one of our things seemed to be humor, so texting each other about the man who'd thrown an epic tantrum in her café, demanding that she put oils on his salad, easily kept us entertained. We must've spent the entire week taking the piss out of him and coming up with innuendos about oils, all in between shamelessly flirting of course.

"So? Did you make her eyes roll in the back of her head or not Muff monkey?"

"I really like her Cook." I told him, a little puffed for breath thanks to the exercise bike suddenly stepping up gears by itself.

Every time I went to our local gym, I always used the same exercise bike and every time it had something wrong with it. But by then I had learnt to just go with the flow, ignoring the tearing tendons in my legs and just waiting for Cook's response.

I watched him bend and position the two dumbbells on the ground, later taking back his full vertical stance to regard me, nothing of his previous Jack-the-lad persona present. "Just be careful. You give some of yourself to someone and they'll always shit on it, yeah? Always."

We both knew what he was talking about and I suppose that was why my smile was so quick to fade.

It was always happening. People getting shat on. Life did it to Katie when it had delivered her newspaper, the headline bolding the front-page: '**_Waste of time you learning about the birds and the bees, there are never going to be any children running around your knees_**_._'

Dad did it to mum when he'd cheated on her with aunt Claire. Before Freddie died, Effy did it to him when she pushed him away because she couldn't handle how tight the grip he had around her heart was.

Effy did it to Cook when she stopped speaking to him during her breakdown after college, wouldn't let him be there for her like she let Katie, and it really did him in because despite what he's always said – what he's still saying even today – he fucking loves her.

No one had really done it to me. My one night stands made sure of that. It was foolproof. Get in, receive maximum pleasure, and get out before all of the bullshit starts. But even then, a small part of me had known that it wouldn't be so black and white with Naomi.

Proof of that presented itself later in that very same month when I found myself stood in Sainsbury's, letting the labels of foreign wines fry my brain for a girl I hadn't even kissed properly yet.

"Fuck this." I'd muttered to myself in the quiet aisle, reaching in the punishingly tight pocket of my jeans for my phone so that I could dial Naomi.

She must've answered six or seven seconds into the ringing, "Hello."

"I can't find it." I whined.

"_I can't find it_," She mocked me lightheartedly, a small chuckle following. "Have you asked one of the people working there if they have any?"

"There's no one about, Naomi. I could literally flash these bottles of wine right now, and no one would see."

"Erm, no."

"_Erm_, _no_ what?" I'd asked, mocking her back for getting me earlier.

"Erm, no way are a group of shelved wines about to see your boobs before I do."

I smirked, glad for the opportunity to be lewd with Naomi, since the most we'd done up until then was hold hands a couple of times and kiss without the implication of tongues. "I'm actually lifting my shirt right now. This is what your life has come to: Bottles of wine are going to get to see your girlfrie –" I cut my presumptuous mouth off, slamming my palm to it with such force that I almost knocked myself unconscious, the silence that then lay between Naomi and I surrounding me like a bitter draft.

It'd only been two weeks by then. Two weeks and three days since 'Date Thursday' and if a piece of skirt had ever proclaimed herself as my girlfriend after just two weeks of…well, whatever Naomi and I were at that point, I would've run for the hills. I knew she liked me; Her determination to keep on the phone with me through our unique symphony of yawns when we both knew we had early starts the next day, and the way she would constantly remind me to swap places when we were walking on the pavement, so that if I car decided to lose control It would hit her and not me, was all evidence that I was of fondness to her. And I'd known that I liked her too, but girlfriends? We'd spent copious amounts of time together in those two weeks and three days, but surely girlfriends was too soon right? I thought so, mostly because I'd never done girlfriend before. I'd done sister, daughter, best friend, work colleague, fuck buddy and I'd done pretty alright jobs of those, depending on who you asked, but girlfriend would be different and I knew it. I'd had no training; everybody around me was privy to the knowledge that I found it a challenge to keep it in my pants. Plus I didn't want to get shat on. Girlfriend wasn't black and white; it was a world of confusing colours all collaged and tangled with one another, and from what my understanding was at the time: It was easy to become caught up in those colours, marked and dyed by them so that you wouldn't know who the person in the mirror was when the vortex eventually spat you out. Girlfriend wasn't foolproof.

Plus, I didn't even know where Naomi's thoughts on the subject stood.

I must of condensated the screen of my phone sighing into it, "Listen Naomi –"

"You're cute when you panic, even if I can't see you right now. Adorable."

"I'd rather be hot than adorable." I replied, trying to drag things back to our usual lighthearted way of being, but it didn't need my phone glitching and playing my voice back to me as an echo to have me hear how lackluster I'd sounded.

"You're hot too Em."

Another silence frolicked between us then, much to my dismay, and it must've taken me another minute or so to work out that Naomi was purposefully leaving the elephant between her mobile and mine for me to deal with, and it was then that I became jittery. "I know," I agreed with her previous statement and heard her laugh low, "Look, you think I'm hot and adorable and funny and nice right?"

"…Err, yeess!" She drawled, almost duhing me with her tone, but sounding like she knew her answer was necessary to placate me, and fuck did I need placating in that moment. I just needed to know how things stood.

"And I think you're funny, creative, smart, cute and the sexiest creature on the planet – even more so than Alyssa Milano – right?"

"Alyssa's not all that, but yes." Naomi rushed out.

"So what if I accidentally almost called myself your girlfriend in the alcohol section of Sainsbury's, and once over the awkwardness your response was: Damn those bottles of wine for getting to see my girlfriend's boobs before I do?"

"Damn those bottles of wine for getting to see my girlfriend's boobs before I do!" She said without missing a beat, and as I glanced my reflection in one of the shiny bottles of red, I saw a smile intense enough to heal the sick.

That same bottle was the one I ended up grabbing by the neck and placing under my arm, the ring on my finger clanging against the glass as I did so. "Fuck the fancy stuff you told me to get. I've already chosen something else. See you after work?"

"Can't wait – oh and if I find out you flashed the _Chateau le Blanc_, its over."

The tin-can quality with which my phone delivered Naomi's giggle to me then, indicated that the connection was about to go dead, and I quickly snuck in a, "Bye," before it did, chest swollen with triumph, because for the first time I was in a relationship and I was ok with it.

More than ok with being Naomi Campbell's girlfriend.


	7. Chapter 7

**As usual, i loved reading your comments guys. Nice to now i'm hitting your 'spots' so to speak lol. Hope you guys enjoy this chapter too!**

The very first time I saw the cracks, occurred the first time Naomi ever invited me around to her flat. I'd been on the phone to Katie when Naomi opened her front door to me, when she'd opened her door to me and just left me standing there as she disappeared off somewhere in her flat. No hello, no hug, no kiss, no eye contact.

Nothing.

"Erm, Kay, I've got to go." I frowned, gawping the dark hole which was doing a half-arsed job at passing for a lounge; skinny's flung over the back of the sofa, a shirt hanging from the lamp like a mannequins' wig, blank canvasses and unwashed paintbrushes thrown into a corner. It wasn't what I'd expected of someone like Naomi.

"Everything ok?" She asked, and if I'd had any sense I would've told Katie no, but back then I guess I'd been severely lacking in any kind of sense when it came to Naomi.

"Everything's fine. We'll be round in about fifteen minutes ok?" Not giving my sister the chance to respond, I hung up and frowned down the lengthy hallway I'd seen those long legs and flowing blonde hair vanish into. "Naomi?"

Nothing.

"Naomi?" I hollered into the darkness again, a non-existent voice advising me not to take myself into the flat any further than where I was already standing, because frankly the hairs on the back of my neck were awake, and I don't know what it was but something just didn't feel right…

The sudden noise of something crashing to the floor sent my palm straight into a collision with my chest; I was sure there would be a crimson handprint marring the porcelain skin over my heart in the following hours, and I was instantly taken back to the time Naomi had just appeared outside of my house to startle me with, '_It's Emily,_ _isn't it_?'

"Naom's, you ok back there?"

Nothing.

A cube of something sour started to form in my stomach then, every one of its corners an emotion from somewhere dark: Concern, fear, uncertainty, anxiety.

"Could you stop shouting, I'm not deaf ok?" Naomi suddenly emerged about two seconds behind her scolding voice, passing me to snatch the pair of skinny's lazing over the back of the sofa as though the sofa had stolen them from her.

My hand instantly took itself to the back of my neck, rubbing reassuringly at the skin there – at the hairs no longer sleeping there. I didn't dare ask Naomi why she hadn't responded to any of my cries if she'd heard me. I did, however, ask. "Babe what's the matter?"

Naomi stopped blurring around the room then, stood halt and trained her blue eyes on me. That was the moment I really took stock of her appearance; eyes full of sore-looking veins, bags as dark as secrets under those blue oceans.

It was the girl I'd met on the curb just outside of my house that night.

The girl I'd forgotten about.

The sight of her like that again, in so much fucking pain, had given my heart a little kick, but it was enough of a kick for me to close the distance between us and take my hand to the soft skin of her cheek. "Naom's, why've you been crying?"

Naomi shook her head so that my hand would fall. "Don't!"

The cold gesture and the harsh demand attacked me like a one-two combo, and I just stood there like a spare part whilst she whizzed around the little lounge collecting stuff indiscriminately.

We'd planned to go to Thorpe Park with Effy and Katie, but with Naomi in the mood that she'd been in, the joyous images of all four of us screaming whilst a rollercoaster took us around its unpredictable track began to disintegrate into the blackest of smokes, and I suddenly didn't want my sister and our best friend to meet the woman who'd more or less turned me into somewhat of a respectable twenty-four-year-old lesbian.

"I-I-I'll just, I'll go then." I muttered almost to myself, waiting around in hope for a moment or two, before eventually making for the front door.

Naomi waited 'til her front door was open and I only had another foot to unleash at the pavement, until she threw her fingers around my wrist, "Emily."

Like a stupid little puppy, I span around with eyes wide and hopeful.

"I'm sorry." She said, gently tugging me back into the warmth of her flat and into her arms.

"Then talk to me." I spoke into her chest, half of it coming out muffled.

When I sensed that Naomi wasn't going to offer any words, much less an explanation, I tried to pry it out of her. "Is it because you don't want to meet Katie and Effy?"

Naomi's arms fell from around me at that question, and she scoffed spitefully. "Oh please Emily. Not all of us creative types are social pariahs you know? I'm twenty-five. I'm a big girl. I think I can handle my girlfriend's friends and family, especially if they're as simple as you make them out to be."

I couldn't believe my ears. I felt ambushed by her words, totally unprepared and overwhelmed, and I was seething by the time I let them go around in my head a second time. "Fuck you Naomi! Not everybody can be Miss artsy-fartsy, and as far as you _not_ being a social pariah, where the fuck are your friends? Because in the month that we've known each other I've never once heard you speak about anyone other than famous artists and characters from TV!"

"There's nothing wrong with being careful about whom you let into your life Emily!" She replied after a long pause.

"There is when I'm the only person in it." I hit back. "What did you do before you met me?"

"I have fucking friends." Naomi spat, getting out her fingers to tally off names, "There's JJ from the café, and Rachael and…"

At that moment, my phone had begun to vibrate, the cheery ringtone totally out of sync with the atmosphere, so I pressed the pick-up button to quickly shush it. "What?"

"Hear about the murder on Turbine Street? Just heard about it on the news; you've got no excuse not to pack up your shit and get the hell out of that shithole now Em. Police said It could've been anyone – by the way where are you guys? You better not be shagging. We're on a schedule and it's gonna take us long enough to get there as it is." Katie's voice rang out in my ear.

I'd heard nothing past, '_Murder on Turbine Street_.'

Phone still to my ear, I slowly looked up at Naomi, who, despite her folded arms and scowl, looked as fragile as anything I've ever seen since or before. "That street has a café on its corner doesn't it?"

"Yeah!" Katie enthused like a teacher who'd finally gotten the correct answer from a student, "A café called _The Room_. Why?"

"Never mind Kay," I quickly said, hanging up. "There's been a murder on Turbine Street." I said, watching Naomi crumble into her palms. She was trembling, or at least her hands had been when she'd held her face in them, and despite our previous words and my thick confusion, instinct told me to cradle the gorgeous blonde in my embrace.

"It was a girl. She was strangled in the side alley just next to the café, and then dumped in the café's dumpsters." My shoulder had gotten most of that sentence.

"Your café?" I asked, feeling Naomi nod, and that was when everything fell into place. Naomi's mood, her snapping at me, her sudden breakdown.

She was shaken up.

I let my hand rotate in slow gentle circles on her back. "I'm sorry." I told her hair.

The thought of Naomi going back to work there shook me up almost beyond repair as my mind took me to a parallel universe, one where I'd have to put Naomi in the ground because some maniac had gotten to her on her way back home from one of her late shifts. "I don't want you working there anymore." I'd thought aloud, taking my fingers through the thick of her blonde mane in repeated strokes.

Naomi pulled back then, peering into my eyes for a long moment, and she was still fucking beautiful in spite of those bloodshot eyes, before nearing her lips to mine without actually granting any contact. Her hand reached up between us, thumb volunteering to softly run the course of my bottom lip. "Kiss me." She whispered.

Our tongues were warm and heated over one another from the birth of the kiss, Naomi's fingers climbing the length of my lower back only to fall gently down it again, her mouth soft and considerate yet demanding and hungry as she pressed firm into me until my back was hitting the wall belonging to the front door.

I'd thought I'd been comforting her because she was shaken up about some young girl having gotten strangled more or less on the counter of her fucking workplace.

The truth, however, would turn out to be far more sinister.


	8. Chapter 8

**Sorry about the lack of updates everyone. Ended up going to an MGMT concert and the brain cells i flooded with vodka haven't quite dried out yet! Chapter is a bit of a filler in my opinion, but i hope you will enjoy it all the same. Some of you guys have mention that this fic reminds you of the show 'Dexter'. I've never watched it, but if it has similar tone to this story, then i just may have to tune in.**

**Ithinktherefore - I've never seen 'Art school Confidential'. But i'll check it out. Thanks for your kind words : )**

**OnTheSly - I think we're all guilty of judging a fic before we read it lol, and then when we actually do read it, we discover that we really enjoy it. I'm just glad you're entertained by this. Thank you for your lengthy review :)**

**UNF - i loved your insight about Naomi's flat not being how Emily thought it would, and so maybe that's indicative that Naomi is also nothing like Emily thinks she is.**

**lovelessandless - you never overstay your welcome lol. Naomi, a sociopath? Maybe. I'm keeping tight-lipped :P**

**Thanks for your comments and questions everybody; i love that you guys haven't a clue whether you're coming or going with regards to what's going on lol.**

I'd ended up sleeping over at Naomi's that night. We hadn't had sex or anything, although I'd stripped her down to her pink-flushed breasts and whispered words of desire against the mouse-brown hair sprinkled scarcely about her womanhood. It'd been beautiful and ridiculously erotic, just being completely naked with another woman and not ending up in a sweaty, grunting, frantic heap. I'd never done anything like that before then, but I had allowed Naomi to lead me to her bedroom, allowed her to peel away cotton restrictions and tour my body with her mouth and teasing hands. All whilst my phone accumulated missed calls and texts from Katie and Effy.

The morning following that night, I was stirred from sleep's hands by the feeling of something soft, warm and slightly moist just retreating from my lips, and when my eyes fluttered open, they managed to catch the subtle bouncing of Naomi's naked butt as she shrank out of sight down her hallway.

I sat up in the bed and reached down its side to where I remembered having left my bag, and took out my phone, my eyes interpreting the last message Katie had left me as an almost audible yell: '_That's it! We're going without you two hoes_!'

"Morning."

The device in my hand was forgotten in the sheets as soon as I'd heard Naomi's voice. My sight took many drawn out trips up and down the length of her naked body as she leaned in the bedroom doorway, her distance from me seeming deliberate. "I'm sorry I ruined yesterday, and I'm sorry I went off on you too."

"With you standing there like that, am I really meant to say anything other than: you're forgiven?"

That seemed to break the spell and Naomi came to join me in bed then, the heat from her smooth body sending my eyelids down in a moment of pure bliss. She brushed her nose against my neck and put one kiss there before warming it with a sigh, "Your sister and your friend are going to think I'm a douche for not showing up yesterday. Great first impression."

"Hey, I didn't show up either." I said, reaching underneath my back to pat around for my phone, which had apparently decided that jabbing me in the side and then running off was appropriate punishment for the fact that I'd ignored its cries the night before. "Besides, you aren't dating them are you? If someone was murdered where Katie worked and dumped in the fucking bins next to her workplace, she'd hardly want to stick a smile on her face and go themeparking either." Giving up on trying to pet out my phone, I span around in Naomi's arms to look her in those tired but stunning pools of blue and smiled a smile with all the warmth I could draw into it. "You were just a little bit shaken up."

Naomi had nodded at that, although looking back she didn't really seem all that convinced to be honest.

"Can I ask you something?" She asked a while later, hints of a smirk nibbling into her mouth, and I nodded. "Why haven't you tried to bed me yet? Thought that would've been the first thing on your to-do list considering the way you bullied me into our first date."

My fingers stopped their amorous stroking of her lower back and scrambled around her elastic bum, the excess flesh spilling out of the sides of my palm as I squeezed for all it was worth. "Ow." She grimaced.

"Serves your right; I didn't bully you." I pouted, "It's called being assertive."

Naomi scoffed a scoff much friendlier than the one she'd dished me the night before. "Yeah right. The only thing you didn't do was hold a gun to my head whilst you got me to sign the contract agreeing to attend a date with you – and you still haven't answered my question."

"Maybe I wanted to prove your initial perception about me being nothing but a womanizer wrong."

"Oh my God, I don't think you're a womanizer!" Naomi fired straight back at me, as though what I'd said was the most ridiculous thing in the world.

What I'd said hadn't been ridiculous though. Since our first date it'd kind of been our little inside joke. One which Naomi always got more giggles out of than I did. When I'd dropped by her cafe with some Feminax, once, because she'd complained of menstrual cramps to me over the phone, it'd been, '_Aww. Thanks gorgeous. All of your other women are going to think you're giving me special treatment_.'

Another time I'd been on the phone to Cook, and I must've said something to him that could've been construed as innuendo. Naomi's two scents had been, '_Tell her Thursday's her day. You're all mine today and tomorrow_.'

I knew she was joking every time she brought it up, but even I have enough brain cells to know that all jokes come from somewhere, and I just didn't like the thought of Naomi thinking I was some sort of whore – even if I _had_ put it about a bit.

I didn't like it.

I think Naomi saw the skepticism working behind the scenes of my frown, because she became passionate as she repeated. "Jesus, Em, I _don't_ think you're a womanizer!"

"Tell her Thursday's her day. You're all mine today and tomorrow." I said, letting it descend upon Naomi until her eyes grew to pots, realization hitting her full pelt.

She then shook her head to herself and inclined her face towards mine, carefully pressing her lips against the lines creating my frown, and I'd instantly felt the skin there relax. "Emily, I only say those things because we both know you have a past and I don't want you to feel awkward about me knowing that. So I try to show you that I'm not arsed by making light of it."

I gazed her for a few seconds, feeling like a total cock for having blown things out of proportion when she'd just been trying to make me feel better. But when I thought about it, the be all and end all was that her 'jokes' were making me feel bad, regardless of the considerate place that they were coming from.

"Well thank you for taking me into consideration. It's sweet and thoughtful but…" I paused to ask myself if I was really going to say what was queued up in my head, and rolled my eyes when I realized that I _was_ really about to put myself out there and risk sounding like an overly sensitive dick. "When you say things like that, I just feel like you think I'm a bit of a whore."

"Well if there's a whore in this room, Em, It's definitely not you." Before I could even contemplate beginning to make sense of that, Naomi was on top of me, the fingers of both her hands trailing whispers from my thighs right down to my ankles, and I linked my feet loosely around her waist, almost coming at the sensation of the slow and very deliberate back and forth motion with which her hips were riding at my clit.

I let my arms circle her and took my greedy fingers down her silk back, as she delivered first class kisses and nibbles along my jaw until she got to my ear. "I've been thinking about fucking you for weeks." She breathed out, voice darkened with nothing but pure dirt.

"Mmm?" Was the only response I'd been capable of, what with my breath playing up in my throat and the chestnut of my eyes constantly flickering white in lust's tornado.

"Yeah, but I wasn't sure whether it was what you wanted." She explained, as good as erasing said words in my mind when she pressed her warm, wet, tongue to the small of my ear and dragged it, with excruciatingly slow speed, to the thick of it. "But now that we've cleared up that little issue…"

Naomi hadn't needed to put forth anymore words. Even through the thick fog of beautiful blonde hair, silky breasts and dreamy, lust-ridden blue eyes, I'd known what she was saying.

My eyes must've followed her with the intensity of a stalker as she took her time kissing her gorgeous lips down the runway of my stomach, muscles beneath the skin there twitching every now and then, until she threw me one last dirty smirk before disappearing beneath the covers altogether.

When my legs became sturdy enough for me to actually walk on again, I sought out my clothes, which in contrast to the rest of the room were tidily heaped on a chair over by the window, and I began cautiously stepping into them, still not confident in the function of my limbs after Naomi had skillfully wound the muscles in them up tight with her tongue and uncoiled me – all of me – with long, deep, strokes of her competent fingers.

"Remind me why we haven't done that sooner again?" Naomi quipped, laying stomach first in her bed, forehead awash with an attractive film of sweat, cheeks slightly bunched and rosy with her satisfied smirk.

She always looked beautiful to me, Naomi had, but in that moment she had looked radiant, and those gorgeous blue pools looked like they'd been rejuvenated with fresh, clean, water; no longer tired.

I decided there and then: "Know what? We're going to _ReVulva _tonight Naom's. I want to show off my beautiful fucking girlfriend for all to see."

What a mistake that would turn out to be.


	9. Chapter 9

**Thank you guys for reading and reviewing. It's nice to be entertained by the very act of writing a story itself and watching it unfold, but to hear what you guys think only improves upon the experience, so thank you : ) This is kind of the first half of the 'drama' as some of you guys have put it. next chapter will get into the nitty gritty of it all.**

In my time, I've had my fair share of nightclub drama. I've backed Katie up in het clubs when some tosser's barged past her without feeling the need to apologize. I've had to untangle myself out of a blur of aggressive fists and legs when my juggling of too many women has become unbalanced.

That night, however, will probably always take the throne.

The clock hitting seven o clock had sort of been like a gong signaling the release of something macabre in the air. It was strange; Outsides chill seemed to become much more spiteful, Naomi's earlier cheer appeared to just suddenly dissolve, and as we pulled to a stop outside of Kay and Eff's house, the icy draft clawing away at the doors and windows of the car somehow managed to get in and freeze our conversation still in its tracks.

In the dark of the car, I reached over and slipped my hand into that of Naomi's, the warmth momentarily combating the chill coming from both outside and from the frosty voice in the background which kept telling me that something wasn't quite right. Still, I hung a smile on my face and dressed my voice in something lively. "Ready gorgeous?"

"Could you do me a favor please Em?" Naomi asked, staring at me through the darkness with eyes as serious as liver cancer, and I instantly began to feel those hairs prickling up on the back of my neck again.

I gulped, doing my best to sound normal. "Course."

She peered down at our hands in unity, slowly dragging her thumb along the side of my index finger. "Promise me you'll stay close to me tonight?"

My shoulders shook out the steel and relaxed, a relieved smile falling over my face. "I promise."

Up until that point I hadn't known why I'd been feeling so…iffy, for lack of a better word. Hadn't known why those pesky hairs on the back of my neck wouldn't quit alerting me that something was amiss. But when Naomi had me promise to stay close to her for the night, my on-edge state shuffled out of the shadows and explained itself; I was just feeling that way because a girl had been strangled five minutes from where I lived and the culprit was still out there. There had never been any killings around the Treetop Garden's area before then, just petty crimes such as muggings and minor attacks, so I'd concluded that it was normal for me to be experiencing the unease I was. I'd concluded that it had to've been that.

I remember thinking that it was weird how the blood spatter from the girl's strangling had managed to land on the faces of so many people unrelated to the incident, as I let myself and Naomi into Katie and Effy's house and caught Katie's, "Stop bringing random guys back here Eff, because it's not just you that has to live here. There's a fucking psycho on the bloody loose and any one of those dickheads that you bring back could do something to you and then break down my bedroom door and come for me!"

"This has nothing to do with you being frightened that I'm going to bring back a murderer Katie. We live nowhere near where the murder took place. You just don't want me bringing guys back simply because it makes you jealous." Effy came back, calm as unstirred water. Effy's nonchalance to things has always annoyed Katie beyond, so I'd quickly glanced back at Naomi to silently apologize for the racket which I had known was about to follow.

"Jealous?" Katie inevitably shrieked, and I felt Naomi shift behind me, probably to wipe the blood from her bleeding ears.

"Jealous." Effy confirmed, popping the last of a raw carrot in her mouth and crunching down on it as she acknowledged Naomi and I with a small nod.

Katie had been far too busy going off on one to pick up on Effy's subtle acknowledgment of us though, and at the time I'd deduced that Katie probably was jealous of all the guys that Effy was able to get. With Katie's self-esteem riding as low as it often did, it made sense.

Of course, now I know better.

Eventually Effy gestured her hand towards Naomi and I and smirked. "It's rude to argue in front of guests."

I've never seen Katie's fangs retreat so fast in my entire life, as she jerked around to look at us, blinking frantic, fingers making thin of her maroon hair thanks to the frequent trips they were making through it. "Emily…" She'd said and I couldn't make sense of why she looked so ambushed. She didn't stick around for long after that, vanishing behind her bedroom door and shunning to come over and introduce herself to Naomi. It resulted in my sending another apology to Naomi with my eyes.

I walked around the counter separating the kitchen and the lounge, towing Naomi close behind, and asked. "What's up with Katie?"

"She'll be fine." Effy said, hopping down from the kitchen worktop with the grace of a feline, and smirking that famous smile of hers she stuck her hand out at Naomi.

As I'd watched them shake hands and introduce themselves I couldn't help but excite at the information that I knew Effy would've just downloaded about her. She's always been like that, Effy has. Always known things about people that she shouldn't – their motives, their desires, fears – and it often, quite spookily, only took one glance. Or one hand shake.

She looked quite pensive when she took her hand out of Naomi's. "Emily tells me you're quite the artist."

Naomi glanced over at me and then back at Eff, shrugging. "I know my way around a pencil and some paint, yeah. How was Thorpe Park? Sorry me and Em didn't make it."

Effy shrugged. "I'm sure you two," She paused to look between the two of us, eyebrows dripping with suggestion, "Had more pressing issues to attend to. But yeah, it was epic. Perhaps you'll be able to make it next time. You could draw pictures of Katie screaming up her lungs on the rollercoaster; save us having to shell out twelve quid for one of those shots that they snap of you whilst you're on the ride."

I watched a smile as manufactured as the moaning in porn flit across Naomi's face so briefly that I would've missed it had I blinked, and instantly my stomach began to fold into itself at the expression darkening in those blue eyes.

"Hey Naom's, can I talk to you outside for a sec please?" I'd asked, my desperation to get Naomi out of there before she began to freak in front of Effy probably very evident.

As I closed the door behind us, I instantly began to shiver. It was just so fucking cold out, but it hadn't been shit on the ice frosting around the eyes that Naomi was throwing my way, and I remember thinking, '_Bullshit like this is why this is my first ever relationship_.'

I sighed. "Have I done something wrong?"

"I don't appreciate you telling people personal stuff about me Emily." She bit at me with the claws of her voice, and I flinched and frowned.

"Well excuse me if I like to talk about you – and they're not people Naomi. They're my fucking family."

She dismissed my budding anger with her own contribution to rage, "What else have you told them?"

I'd stood on the step, almost squaring up to her, because I wasn't backing down, and I searched her face as though I'd lost my favorite piece of jewelry in it. "What are you hiding?" I asked, squinting in hope that I'd be able to make something out through the mist of confusion taunting my capacity to comprehend.

"Nothing." Naomi had replied much too quickly, like it was a cultivated response. Like she'd been asked before.

My nails pinched painfully at my scalp as I raked my fingers hard through my hair. I hadn't given a shit about fucking up my fringe. I'd needed to release some frustration, but it seemed that all I'd ended up with was a sore scalp, because letting my hand fall to my side, I felt more irritated than ever. "I _really_ fucking like you Naomi! Why? God knows, but I do, so just – fuck!"

Naomi sighed and extended her hand out to mine, grasping it like she was handling bone china, and I'd sensed that I was about to hear another one of her sorrys, so I held up my free hand. "If you say sorry I'm going to stick each letter of the word up your arse alright?"

Naomi's eyes slowly shuffled from left to right, as though she didn't quite know how to respond, but that'd been ok because I hadn't finished. "This," I gestured between the two of us, "Is already daunting enough for me without you repeatedly flying off of the handle. I'm just letting you know; if this happens again, you're going to have to explain yourself because I'm not some tosser who's gonna put up with your bullshit."

"Ok." She whispered, having taken on the demeanor of an innocent child.

Almost as if having considered the fact that Naomi and I were done with our chat, the door behind me opened, none other than Katie, kitted out in her famous leopard print, adorning the doorway. She stepped past me, heels making music against the steps, and pulled Naomi into a small hug. "I'm Katie, Emily's much prettier twin sister. It's nice to finally meet you Naomi. Emily doesn't shut her cakehole about you. It'd be boring if it weren't so much fun watching her little eyes light up whenever your name is mentioned."

Despite what had just occurred minutes before, I couldn't fight the smirk tugging the corner of my lips as I introduced Katie's arm to my handbag…forcefully. "Fuck off Katie."

Before a response could spill from Naomi's parting lips, we all heard. "Ready then girlies?" and then Effy appeared out from the same doorway behind us, like Stars In Your Eyes, dressed from head to toe in her usual effortless yet flooring Effy-dress. She pulled the front door in and locked it, shuffling us from in front of the house like a mother sweeping a broom at her child's feet. "Taxi should be here any minute now."

"Oh and Naomi," Katie suddenly piped up, wearing a sickly sweet smile, "If you hurt my sister, I won't think twice about inflicting bodily harm."

It'd been the second time that night that a Fitch had put her in her place, and I'd found that funny, especially when Naomi just nodded, seemingly afraid to refute the threat.

The moment we'd stepped foot in _ReVulva_, I'd grabbed Effy's arm and dragged her into the toilets, locking us into a cubicle. "So?" I asked the slightly out-of-breath brunette.

"Soo, Lady Gaga's number one again this week, and every time I hear one of her ridiculous tunes, I die just a little more inside, but other than that I'm great. You?"

I laughed once for derisive effect, "**_Soo_** what did you think of Naomi?"

That pensive look from earlier returned, somewhat graying her beautiful features. "I couldn't get a read on her."

If it weren't for the fact that I'd felt something ominous settle over me at Effy's response, I would've laughed at Effy's likening Naomi to a thermometer.

"Don't look so disheartened." She said, clicking her teeth and playfully squeezing my cheek.

The truth was that I had been disheartened. Disheartened because I was disheartened, if that makes any sense at all, because it dawned on me that I must not have had much trust in the person I'd allowed myself to begin falling for if I was so cut about Effy not having any success in deciphering her. I knew I was in big trouble. Not only that, but no one ever – _ever_ – bypassed Effy's _downloads_ so to speak. She always managed to get something from them, even if it was their favorite colour.

I was weirded out to be frank, stood in a cubicle with one of my best friends actually pondering whether Naomi was human or not, as ridiculous as that sounds. I should've told Eff about Naomi's little freak outs there and then, but I didn't. Instead, I took her hand and we headed back out into the music and artificial smoke of the dancefloor.


End file.
